Iowa Short Fiction Awards

Well, it's bittersweet. Once again, a semifinalist for the Iowa Awards. I know you are saying, bitch, you should be happy. Ten years writing and writing once we hit '09 and still no book published. What do I have to do? I have to write 15 Stories that will knock your socks off. Or just get lucky, I guess. Maybe it's something to do with the times. Oh well, I think I'd rather get a semifinalist letter than no letter at all. That's in the top 20 out of almost 400 people, according to the editors...so quit y'bitching, Ms. Genna. That collection is still out there looking for a home. It's called Stories I Heard When I Went Home for My Grandmother's Funeral. The stories in it all have some reference to Iowa. I thought it was pretty lucky to get picked as a semifinalist for the Iowa Prize because they don't look for Iowa stories. I have been shopping for a press that does Midwest stories, but they are few and far between.

X-MAS OVER / NOW WHAT?

Thank God, X-mas is over. I still want to to go to church, just to sing all the old hymns, clear those rusty pipes out. But hey, it's time to look forward. Can someone point me to a bookstore? I'm finished reading all my lit mags that I have on my shelf: Cimarron Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and, oh wait, I still have to read River Oak. The Cimarron issue started off a little slow, but then it grew on me. I'd have to say I enjoyed the poetry the most--lots of narrative stuff that I could appreciate. Toni Graham is the fiction editor there; she used to teach at USF, so I thought I'd check it out. The stories in there--let's see, I really liked "Funny Looking People" by Gemini Wahhaj--a story I thought my students at Hercules would like. "Gazelle" ended a little abruptly for me, and I love an abrupt ending. Oh, and I finished Opium 7. I love the graphics in that magazine. What's weird is that my name's in it and I keep forgetting that. I'm going to show it to my students as a possible idea for imitating some of the different layouts. We produce a high school lit mag called The Dynamite Factory, which sounds like an old school 70's name, but is really based on the fact that all of Hercules used to be a powder works company. We should have our website up and running soon for that class, too.
Okay, so writing. I think the best thing is to read what you want to be writing. By that I mean, if you're gearing up to write a novel, read novelists you admire. Someone gave me a copy of Water for Elephants, and I can't get past chapter 2. I wanted to read it, just for the fact that it's about circus people, but I couldn't get past the convention of old fart telling his life story. I remember a really good novel called Geek Love that does this much better. Read some Richard Yates. I heard a review of the movie Revolutionary Road on NPR that said it was an okay version of the book, but don't do what I did with Atonement and watch the movie first. I can't get through that book now, and I felt the movie was anticlimactic. The lit mag Water~Stone Review is just beautiful, inside and out--try that one. I have a few more pages of that left to read. So my two faves in L.M. This year are still The Iowa Review and Opium. They fit my sensibility. Of course, there's always McSweeney's and Missouri Review. If you're a short story writer or a poet or a creative nonfiction writer, you should be reading lit mags, period.

Stories to get oneself fired

Finished the Mississsippi Review's magazine about Literary Magazines (Volume 36, Number 3) and found a great deal of the information in there to be useful to me as a short story writer. I also finished Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and loved, loved, loved it. His dark themes and his writing style are right up my alley. If you're a writer, order that lit mag; it'll be worth the investment. The editors who talk up in the magazine also recommend some new writers and I found them all disturbingly inspiring. I'm not a critic, just a writer and a reader--so order it for yourself and decide.

Well, it's vacation time--time to catch up on the writing and make some resolutions:
1. Get in better shape--the back problem is, for the most part, resolved, so it's time to work on the legs and the arms. They got a little flabby this year. Personally, though, I think it's pre-menopausal stuff, to be honest, because I stayed pretty active even with a bad back.
2. Well, it's time to start thinking about a novel. I have an idea for one--As Lewis Buzbee said to me once, "Don't write a novel unless you've got an idea for one." But what happens to me is I start out to write a novel and it ALWAYS turns into a short story. That may just be who I am.
3. Which, by the way, leads me to another resolution and that is to order a new copy of Lewis's book Steinbeck's Ghost and read it. I had just started it, took it to school to show off to my students, and it came up missing. An avid high school reader, perhaps? Anyway, I can't wait to get it again and read it.
4. Read some long fiction: I'm thinking Toni Morrison's new book Mercy sounds good. Any suggestions? I like to read books that I could also share with high school students, so nothing too obscure. It works best if it's something that will get published later on in paperback.
5. Read some short story collections: Ron Carlson, Charles D'Ambrosio? Any suggestions there? I read Haruki Mirakami's collection this past summer. How about a woman writer? Nona Casper's collection was also right up my alley (IoWa, IOwa, IOWA).
6. Write some short stories about my teaching experiences, if they won't get me fired. As always, thought, that might not be such a bad thing.

New flash on-line

http://www.bigtoereview.com/id77.html

This is a story I wrote for Big Toe Review called "The Holiday Issue." Tell me what you think.

Correction: The Mississippi Review / Literary Magazines

OOPS! The magazine is the Mississippi Review: A Journal of Contemporary Literature. The issue is called "Literary Magazines / Volume 36 / Number 3. I just got it and will let you know if it's useful for finding out about literary magazines. I want to know what the state of the art is. I send a work called "The Holiday Issue" to Big Toe Review and got accepted, so look for that piece of irreverent flash. More later, recovering from the flu.

Read about Literary Magazines in Missouri Review

Reading the Newpages blog and they had a great note on one of Missouri Review's literary mags--it's a magazine about literary magazines. They talk to editors about the state of the art in lit mags. I ordered my issue. I'll be curious to see what they say about issues of print vs. web. More and more, I'm turning to websites to publish because the wait time with print is so long. I love seeing my work in print, but one thing I've found--I've said this before--is that telling friends, students, coworkers they can find your work archived on-line is really rewarding, especially when the work you've gotten published is some of your finest. When I sent my story "Stories I heard when I went home for my grandmother's funeral" in to Storyglossia, I had no idea he'd nominate it for a Pushcart, but I did know that I liked it well enough to send it without any input from my writing group. There's a job posted for Northwestern College, which is in Orange City, Iowa, on that newpages.com blog, too. I could go back there and teach creative writing. Orange City is an all Dutch town (or mostly). It really is a throwback to another time to go back there. Oh, I miss it all.

Classic lit, Acting, and Unblocking

Well, it's 1:15 on a Sunday afternoon. My teenager's eighteenth birthday came and went yesterday. I've been reading the River Oak Review and finding it much more diggable as I went on. Loved the short story "Misfortune" by Lanner Tremont about a fortune teller substitute. Clever little flip to it. It felt like a story I could share with my creative writing students at HMHS. "Sky Full of Burdens" by Meg Moceri especially trips my trigger because of its reference to a fear of heights. I thought the dialogue in it was funny. I'm still reading it. I'm looking to read a few good novels between now and end of the school year. Probably Toni Morrison's Mercy. Did anyone go to see her talk in SF this weekend? I had to act in the school play--what fun! I realized that what I've been missing once again is activity. By that I mean, moving around and having fun. I'm finally getting over a back injury from a year ago, getting out and walking the new puppy, exercising, and thinking about what to write. The activity has to be fun, though. Just acting in a play, recalled all the memories of teaching theater at Richmond High School. Love those 11 YEARS. I miss it, but I know the amount of work that goes into being a theater teacher, which is why I decided to become a writer instead. I missed doing things on my own rather than always teaching others. And that moment in the spotlight Friday night made me realize that I'm teaching too much or else falling into the trap of quizzes and study guide questions again. I wanted to teach My Antonia, Farewell to Arms, Ethan Frome, and The Great Gatsby: 1870-1930 lit: in a new and interesting way and I started just assigning and moving on. YUK. So it's time to reasses. Monday, no quiz. Kids will have to draw what's missing in Huck Finn. They were joking, no pictures, Ms. Genna and I said, well, they're used to be. We talked for a long time about the language in Huck and what's redeemable in it, but Ilike to give them class time to read. I think they should draw or make a graphic comic or a play. It's been done, I know, but not by them. We'll see. As for my own writing, I keep debating about whether to write memoir or fiction or novel, and suddenly I decided I was giving myself a block. Why not do all three! I can always write memoir and keep a running story going--these stories about growing up in Iowa in a farming family of 10 kids are classic. I don't have to think about publication. I could also write stories as they occur. Still looking for that novel idea, but I think I need to be reading novels to be in that frame of mind.